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8/5/14

Katherine Hepburn is Dead.

11.1.11

Note: I brought this in from an abandoned blog. I need some space and this really should have been here in the first place.

And Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Wyman and Greta Garbo and Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman. And for that matter any woman I would want a young lady to have as a role model. I guess Angelina Jolie has merits, she has been outspoken and defensive of her stupid choices. She's seemingly kind and charitable and seems to have the will and resources to have a litter of third world babies. My problem there is that since she became the commodity that she did the roles where she gets to be strong and interesting and sometimes wrongfully so have dried up.

I watched Mr and Mrs Smith. That sucked. I don't know if most of the world knows that sucked anymore than they know Justin Timberlake sucks, but all these things are true. This gets me into the subtext of the post. Quality and this thing in my head about Applied art, Fine art and the arts and crafts movement. Maybe we'll get there, maybe not, but find one category that li'l JT fits and we'll talk a little more-and I mean a defensible position, not an eyes-shut-subjective-or-guilty-pleasure offense. Believe me, that is offensive and I hope not just to me.

That later. Maybe. Maybe Tomorrow. Christ, I have to assume that a large percentage of the people finding this are rock stupid as a large percentage of the world is-ok, rock stupid is childish-but, let's say thoughtless. I still want to dumb this down because I want people to like me and I want to be popular. If you've gotten this far I'll assume you can carry a thought in an envelope or I piss you off.

The parts she doesn't do anymore and hasn't since "Girl, Interrupted" and (I'm puking in my mouth a little bit) "Foxfire" are the flawed and confident. The things I admire in Kate and Greta. The things I would want a daughter, if I had a daughter, to see.

I think in some ways we have seriously shafted ourselves by allowing the puritanism of those jolly good ol' days die. I'm not advocating censorship, I never will, I'm encouraging some candor and self policing. Since the gates were opened we've lost naughty. It's straight to dirty and all the movies have lost the winks that used to let us know that, while we were watching with our kids, that part was for the grown ups.

Not that I remember. I'm fucking 33. Nevertheless, there's the inclusive feeling of an in joke that we've sacrificed for our freedom to say anything. We fail to notice so often that our boundaries are usually what makes art, well, art. Our limitations and what we're able to do with them are what makes us great.

With an unlimited budget and resources, we don't rely on our creativity. "Titanic" is what results. Some of our greatness goes away. Our difficulties in life are rarely in our hardships, they're so often in the luxuries. I had a talk late last year with Matt about the shitty people we would have become if we had had any success. I am an absolutely wonderful failure.

The other thing that dies with the budget restrictions and the ability to ask the question "should we do this simply because we can?" are the roles for women. And I mean roles about women as people. Forget the Bechdel test, it's worse than even mere misogyny: it's become dumb and, worse yet, tepid.

I want a strong, confident and flawed woman. Not out to prove that a woman could be an action hero, because, really, who gives a shit? I want movies about people I know doing things that I do well. I want her to be flawed both physically and emotionally. I want her to be like the people I know and I want her to be comfortable with that. A human being trying to compensate or in the throes of ridiculous circumstance is not a role model. A leader does what we do every day, but better than we do.